Consacrated to God
by SawyerRaleigh
Summary: How the mighty rise and fall...
1. Le Verre

_Author's Note: More to come I think? ^^; I found this last night and thought I'd finish up bits of it and try publishing some... There is more but it's not nearly complete so hopefully I can get around to tying off all those little loose ends I started. ^^;; Oh and Le Verre means Glass. (Fun fact btw: Cinderella was a French fairytale originally, and in the story she originally had a FUR slipper, "vaire" (fur) sounds very similar to "verre" (glass) and it got mistranslated. Fur sounds way more comfortable as a slipper than glass now doesn't it? I always thought that a glass shoe sounded just awful...) Also, now that I read over this again, I can really see the influence of the song "Shining" by Kristian Leontiou. ^^; I was listening to it while writing... Is a good song if you want to look it up. ^_^ Anywho, my ramblings aside, here is "Consacrated to God".  
_

_._

_.  
_

_Le Verre_

Fuuma was screaming but no one could hear him.

Images swirled through his mind of broken glass, shattered by the piercing scream? And blood, droplets and rivulets and drops and rivers, the metallic scent leaving a gag-worthy taste in his mouth, still wide open in a cry for help, relief, reprieve, release, anything.

The sound of glass shattering in movies is pleasing, an almost musical tone as tiny shards cheer for freedom from an oppressive oneness that was the sheet, a satisfying sparkle as beautiful as the glitter of clear pieces scattered across the floor.

In real life however, the sound is more of a cry in protest as one entity is broken, a destruction so final the pieces can never be reassembled into exactly what they were before. Shards slamming into the floor release small involuntary screams at every scar they represent, then lie still in defeat, a massacre of tiny crystalline pieces, strewn carelessly on the ground.

Kamui had been so fragile, it hadn't taken much to shatter him and now one shard was embedded deeply in Fuuma's mind, gripping his nervous system, its jagged edge slicing the bond between his thoughts and actions. The knot between his mind and body was not completely severed though, frayed strands clung desperately across a void, straining to reconnect, to not be lost completely in the darkness awaiting on either end, the nothing behind his mind, the hell before his body.

For a moment, Fuuma couldn't see anything and he thought he had blacked out again, or was about to. He decided not to this time, and struggled to resurface. His hand stung, he could still feel that. Disoriented, unbalanced, and dizzy, he focused on the pain in his hand to bring him out of the dark fog that had threatened to cloud his consciousness as it had several times before over the past several days. _A cut, there's a cut across my palm_. He thought vaguely, mentally probing the feeling of flesh being pulled away from flesh as glass invaded, filling a small canyon with blood. He inwardly winced as his hand gripped the shard, leaving a matching cut across his fingers.

His arm swung forward violently, unexpectedly and he felt a sickeningly squelch as the glass entered something not completely solid. A warm thick fluid splashed onto his arm and as the smell of salt and iron temporarily overwhelmed his senses he registered with horror that it was blood running down his hand, and this time it wasn't his own.

In response, another scream ripped through his ears, assaulting his senses and he shook in involuntary fear and sympathetic pain. Recognition lurched through him and he mentally gagged as he realized it was Kamui's blood on his arm, Kamui's hand beneath the shard of glass.

"The earth…"

Whose voice was that? He felt the shudder of his own vocal chords but it wasn't him talking. He wasn't saying anything, even though he was trying to. Who had stolen his tongue? What was under his tongue?

Warm salty liquid with the bitter twist of iron to it slid down his throat and red splashed across his vision in recognition of the taste. A frantic pulse beat against his lips as though trying to beat them away.

"... is wishing for a change."

An inhale pressed warm, slick skin involuntarily against his lips for just a second.

"Fu…u…ma…" Those two syllables alone sounded like the exhale of broken glass from a throat already tattered.

"A change that won't be hindered by humans."

Who was that? Who was speaking? Fuuma struggled to see past the dark veil obscuring his vision but it only pushed back in retaliation, overtaking his other senses as well. The sound of Kamui's labored panting faded away as did the smell and lingering taste of blood.

But he clung to that shard of glass, determine not to let go, so that even when all of his other senses were overwhelmed and robbed from him, the pain in his hand, gave him just the tiniest connection still to his own body.

He closed his eyes.

_And woke up._

_But not in a real place, or so he assumed. There was nothing around him but darkness and all he could see was himself. He didn't hear anything but as he shifted slightly, rustling the cotton folds of his clothes, he realized it was merely because there had not been anything to hear. He strained every sense, but could detect nothing beyond himself, then in frustration, he clenched his fist and winced as something bit into his palm. Opening it, he saw a jagged shard of glass with bloodied edges. _

_He had to get back, he had to regain control; something bad was happening and he thought maybe it was somehow because of him…_

_"Stay there."_

_That voice was too commanding to be Kamui's and yet it had the same pitch, the same cadence…_

_Kamui stepped into the light without a source. _

_No, not Kamui._

_"Who…"_

_"Kamui."_

_"No, you're not Kamui."_

_The Other gave him a ruthless smile as he stepped forward to stand over Fuuma._

_"I am, the real Kamui, the one who seeks the glory of the gods."_

_"How did you get here?"_

_"I've been here all along." _

_Fuuma stared at the glass shard in his hand, searching for his own reflection in it, but the semblance was faint, more of a shadow and hints at colored shapes, than an actual representation of himself, of Fuuma._

_"You won't find your reflection there." Kamui hooked a boot under Fuuma's chin, forcing him to look up."All you've ever been is the one born to fill the gap." Kamui's laugh was hollow and humiliating. "It would explain your hopeless devotion to him from day one. Didn't you wonder what was so special about Kamui all along? It's because that's all you really were. A placeholder, a chest to house the rest of him." Kamui gave him a pitying look absent of sympathy. "'Fuuma' never really existed."_

_Fuuma clenched his fist and felt more blood well up in his palm._

_"Although I suppose it's lucky for you, isn't it?" Kamui tilted his head. "You don't have to be around for the end of the world. Or the end of Kamui."_

_Fuuma saw it out of the corner of his eye, the blood slipping out of his clenched palm and snaking across the ground to wind its way up Kamui's leg, solidifying into a tiny, nearly imperceptible, and incredibly fragile-seeming thread. _

Don't let go. _He silently cried out to it, desperation pulling the string taut. _

_"All you have to do is fade away."_

Don't let…

_There was a sudden weightless feeling as Kamui's boot dropped out from under his chin without warning._

Don't…

_Kamui disappeared and with him, the light. No longer able to see or hear or taste or smell or feel, Fuuma wasn't sure he still existed._


	2. La Lumiere

_Author's Note: I wasn't sure if I would ever actually continue this particular fic but apparently I am. XD And it went a direction I wasn't expecting myself. Yay for stories that decide stuff on their own eh? _

.

_La Lumière_

A spark flared to life. A tiny, insignificant spark which could support all life and hold eternity in its flickering ethereal grasp. He stared at the spark, blinding and glorious, though it was no more than an ember. Confined to darkness, mindlessness, and timelessness, that spark meant the world. It glowed a little brighter as he watched, ribbons of light reaching upward, without any regard for gravity, merely ascending to some place that seemed to be rightfully its own. It gradually became its own proper flame, glowing with an intensity unmarked by restriction.

Fuuma willed himself closer to the little flame and felt waves of warmth roll over him, brushing against his skin like feather light caresses. He smiled and stretched slightly, relishing the faint heat.

Closing his eyes against the bright light, he imagined his own body heat expanding like that of the growing flame before him, radiating from beneath his skin with the same yellow-red glow, like light shining from beneath flesh.

He smiled and felt a tug at the corners of his lips, jolting with surprise at the sensation. He jerked with the feeling of one has just awoke from a dream of falling to find themselves lying safely in bed. After a few, shocked and shallow breaths, he felt oriented enough to sit up and find himself lying, not in bed but in grass. He recognized his surroundings as belonging to a park where he and his sister had often played as small children and for one mad moment, he expected to see a three-year old Kotori run shrieking across the playground, to her favorite slide.

Of course no such thing happened and Fuuma felt a sickening lurch as memories sank in.

Kotori-chan…

She was…

He only just made it to a somewhat obscured patch of shrubs before being violently ill.

"Mommy, what's wrong with him?"

"Filthy drunk…"

Fuuma shook, clutching at the ground beneath him for support.

_Why?_

_It's all my fault!_

_No… not me… him._

Kamui's cruelly smiling face floated to the surface of his memories.

_No… Kamui's too kind, too gentle for that!_

Memories of glass and blood and power lines and earthquakes jumbled together in a cacophonous mess, leaving him even more lost and disoriented than before.

_I have to know. _He decided. _I have to find out what really happened._

Reassured by this decision, he dragged himself to his feet, using a tree trunk for support and ignoring the stares of passerby's.

He made it half a block before he stumbled into a hulk of a man whom he didn't recognize. He felt himself lose balance and braced himself for the impact of the fall, expecting the scrape of concrete on skin. To his surprise, it never came and he realized that the enormous stranger had grabbed him before he could topple over. Fuuma raised his head, expecting the man to yell at him or punch him, start a fight, something for having run into him.

Much to his surprise the man's face filled with sluggish recognition however.

"Kamui?"

At the back of Fuuma's mind he felt the stirrings of _that_ person.

"No." He pushed back away from the giant with a choking kind of panic and the man seemed to realize that something was wrong.

"Are you okay?" He asked hesitantly, still holding out his arms like he expected to have to catch Fuuma.

"Yeah, just… go away."

The man gave him a long appraising look then announced. "You have two options. Either you can walk back with me of your own accord, or I can sling you over my shoulder and carry you back. Take your pick."

Fuuma tried to stumble away from the man, ignoring the offer entirely.

"Alright then."

"What the-"

Everyone in the park turned to look as the stranger snatched Fuuma up and tossed him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

"Who the hell do you think you are?" Fuuma screamed.

"Um… sir?" A nervous police officer approached, keeping a wary distance although Fuuma wasn't sure who he was afraid of more, the giant and proportionately imposing man, or the seemingly crazy one over his shoulder.

"Sorry officer, my little brother isn't feeling too good. I'm gonna get him home."

"O-okay."

Fuuma made a feeble attempt to kick at the man's groin and was stopped by a large hand clamping down on his ankle. People stared as they passed, walking through the city but the stranger calmly ignored them and continued on his merry way, heedless of the way people became suddenly unsettled and jumped quickly out of the way when he walked by.

At last they reached an apartment and the stranger dumped Fuuma on a couch before quickly blocking the door, hulk that he was, so that Fuuma could not escape. "Look Kamui," he began, raising his hands in mock surrender. "I'm not gonna hurt you, I just wanna know what's going on."

"My name isn't Kamui!" Fuuma shrieked. "Stop calling me that!"

The stranger raised an eyebrow. "What is your name then?"

"What the hell? Why would I tell some random stranger that? You want my social security number and date of birth while I'm at it?"

The man stared at him for a long time as Fuuma glared at him as best he could. It was hard to glare at a person when your vision kept blurring him into doubles and triples of himself.

"That's weird." The man said at last, more to himself than to Fuuma. Then he lowered his hands and held one out to him. "I'm sorry, I think we've gotten off on the wrong foot. Let's start over. My name is Kusanagi Shiyu."

Fuuma stared at the hand before he realized he was meant to shake it. "What, I'm supposed to exchange pleasantries now with the guy who kidnapped me?" He demanded.

"Kidnapped you? You mean rescued you before you could be arrested for public drunkenness?"

"I'm not drunk!" Fuuma protested.

"I know that. You know that. The police and the spectators there in the park don't."

Fuuma scowled. He was fully aware that he'd been in a sticky situation there in the park but he'd be damned if he wanted to admit that to this guy.

"I'm not looking for a medal of honor." Kusanagi pressed. "Just your name and a chance to chat will do."

Fuuma begrudgingly took his hand. "Fuuma Monou."

"There we go." The man beamed and plopped himself down in a rickety looking chair across from him. "So here's the funny thing, Mister Monou. You see, I seem to recall meeting you before only under the name Kamui."

"My name isn't Kamui." Fuuma grumbled and at the back of his mind, he felt that stirring again, a struggling against thin plastic in danger of tearing.

"So you said." Kusanagi nodded obligingly. "I'm just mentioning this so you know that I wasn't just snatching you up for no reason back there in the park. I believed you to be an acquaintance." He tilted his head, thinking for a moment and looking for all the world like a bear contemplating a beehive, trying to decide how to get at the honey without getting stung. "Do you have a twin?" He asked at last.

At the word "twin", Fuuma's stomach lurched and he leaned forward, trying not to be violently ill all over the man's floor as memories twisted through his head.

_"You are his twin star."_

_"Kotori-chan!"_

_Blood seeping across the ground._

_A warm body under his, straining to writhe away. _

_"You're just a placeholder."_

A bucket was suddenly shoved between his feet, the metal clang jerking him back to reality as a hand pressed gently down on his back.

"Head between your knees kiddo and if you're gonna be sick, try to get most of it in there, huh?"

Fuuma could feel beads of sweat dripping down his nose yet he shivered, feeling like he was trapped in the arctic. Why was it so cold in here?

"Look, you don't have to tell me a thing if just thinking about it makes you this queasy kid."

At least the hand on his back was warm. He vaguely remembered the way his father used to rub his back like this when he was sick and couldn't get to sleep as a small child.

Oh god, his father…

It was a good thing Kusanagi had shoved the bucket under him after all and as soon as he was done throwing up, the man was wise enough to move it before the smell could set off new waves of nausea.

"My dad is dead." Fuuma remarked aloud, feeling like the information was just now sinking in.

"Oh yeah?" Kusanagi returned with a glass of cool water. "Mine too. Was it recent?"

Fuuma gulped the water down gratefully. "I don't know. I can't remember." He set the emptied glass by his feet and rested his elbows on his knees, massaging his temple as though he could draw the memories out that way. "I don't know where I've been or for how long. I have no idea how I got in that park." Panic coiled around his chest, squeezing out his lungs and he struggled to breathe.

"Hm." Kusanagi rubbed the back of his neck thoughtfully. "I'm not a doctor but it does sound like should see one kiddo."

"Do you think I'm crazy?" Fuuma jerked his head up.

"You don't seem crazy to me." Kusanagi answered calmly. "Just badly shook up."

"I remember some stuff." He continued. "But it's all mixed up. Like a puzzle that hasn't been put together yet."

"Well, try starting with the last thing that's clear to you and see if you can retrace your steps?" Kusanagi suggested slowly. "It's what I do when I forget where I left something."

Fuuma nodded and closed his eyes. The first image was one of black umbrellas. "My dad's funeral." He said slowly. I just remember it was raining really hard that day."

"Okay, good, that's a start." Kusanagi nodded encouragingly. "And then what happened after the funeral?"

_Powerlines._

_Blood._

Fuuma gagged but there was nothing left to vomit at this point. Still he could not expel the feeling of being poisoned, of something toxic and parasitic living somewhere deep within.

"I don't remember." He choked.

"Don't worry then kiddo, it'll come to you when you're ready." Kusanagi soothed. "In the meantime, do you know if you have a place to stay?"

Fuuma shook his head. "I don't even know where I am now." He answered shakily.

"Then why don't you stay here for a while until you can get back on your feet?"

And just like that Fuuma found himself sequestered in Kusanagi Shiyu's apartment for a few days, wondering how the hell he had gotten there and where the hell he would go next.

When he wasn't distracted though by swarming memories or worries about what he needed to do next, Fuuma found himself watching Kusanagi closely, originally because he remained somewhat suspicious of the man's true intentions, but gradually it became more about unraveling the mystery that was the man.

Kusanagi had some strange habits. He kept dozens of live plants in every room of the apartment, creating his own tiny forest right in the middle of a Tokyo high-rise. Every morning he would throw open every set of blinds and walk through the apartment, watering each and every one of the plants. This, Fuuma simply took as taking good care of them but he stumbled over the part where Kusanagi didn't just water the plants. Sometimes he sang to them in his rumbling voice like distant thunder old folk songs that made Fuuma think of mountains and rivers. Kusanagi talked to the plants too like they were old friends, telling them how his day had gone, and asking about theirs. He would even pause as if listening and laugh or make some cheerful or sympathetic comment in response to an unspoken answer. Fuuma wasn't sure if he was crazy or just terribly lonely.

"Why do you do that?" He asked at long last.

"Some people say that talking to plants helps them grow." Kusanagi answered mildly. "Probably has to do with the carbon dioxide that we exhale."

_Then why do you listen to them too?_ Fuuma wondered silently.

"Of course there's only so much you can do." Kusanagi added softly, stroking the leaves of an aralia that had begun to yellow and shrivel.

Fuuma stared at it, realizing that he had never in his life felt sorry for a dying plant before but suddenly the image of his father lying on that hospital bed, hooked up to so many wires and machines that he looked like a robot came to mind.

As Kusanagi turned to water a bamboo plant, Fuuma shuffled over to the aralia and sank to his knees beside it. It was irrational to cry, he knew, but tears welled up behind his eyes anyway. He gingerly fingered one drooping life, trying not to imagine a limp hand in his. He murmured a soft prayer he remembered his father teaching him when he was little and let a tear splash down, leaving a small dark spot in the soil. It was stupid to wish so hard that the plant would be okay. He had no connection to it whatsoever.

He closed his eyes and with a sigh returned to the couch, flopping down with the intention of going back to sleep for a few more hours.

The next day though he found himself kneeling by the plant again as Kusanagi made his morning rounds, currently addressing the foliage in the kitchen. He murmured the same prayer then lost himself in his thoughts as he stared blankly at the leaves, wondering why he was so intent upon the plant's health that he was not even imagining it looking greener.

When Kusanagi sank down beside him, Fuuma jumped and stammered some excuse about thinking he had seen a bug on the aralia.

"What did you do?" Kusanagi asked softly and Fuuma's heart lurched, thinking that he was about to incur the wrath of a man twice his size.

"I just… said a little prayer from when I was little."

Kusanagi opened his mouth, but paused and closed it again, moving on to the bathroom.

The next day, Fuuma got up before Kusanagi woke up to go to the little aralia in the semi-darkness of early dawn and repeat his prayer. He nearly fell over backward when Kusanagi entered the living room early, yawning like a bear just out of hibernation. He froze when he saw Fuuma sitting by the plant but didn't say a word. Fuuma scampered back to the couch and neither of them mentionned the awkward moment until later. This time when Kusanagi made his way to the aralia, he paused, and took so long to inspect it that Fuuma began to wonder if he was thinking up creative ways to kill him for murdering his plant.

"Hey kiddo." He called. "C'mere."

Fuuma nervously pattered across the floor to him, certain that he was walking straight into a fight he was going to lose. He kept an eye on Kusanagi, wary of the tiniest sign of movement that might warn him when he needed to run or at least duck. Maybe he could even get in a few solid punches first, who knew. Years of playing every school sport available to him had certainly paid off in the past. Then again, Kusanagi looked like he could smash Fuuma's skull in with one fell swoop if he wanted to.

_Great._ He thought. _I'm gonna die because of a fucking houseplant._

"Looks like that little prayer of yours worked."

"Huh?" Fuuma dragged his eyes away from the expanse of shoulders and let them land on the aralia and his jaw fell open. He hadn't been able to see it very well earlier with the blinds still closed but now as sunlight filled the room he could clearly make out the now verdant, practically glowing leaves.

"She likes you." Kusanagi grinned over his shoulder at Fuuma.

Fuuma sank to his knees beside him, feeling suddenly much lighter.

"Where'd you learn that prayer anyway?"

"My dad taught it to me."

Kusanagi nodded thoughtfully. "Your dad sounds like he must have been a decent man."

Fuuma agreed. "Was your dad the one who taught you about plants?"

Kusanagi's face darkened. "No." He answered bluntly then quickly changed the subject. "Why were you praying for her anyway though?"

Fuuma focused on the leaves, trying to ignore the slight burning in his cheeks. "I just… wanted it to get better is all."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kusanagi turn to give him an odd look.

"You are… very different from the person that you reminded me of initially." He remarked slowly.

Then a smile stretched across his face again and Fuuma wondered how he could have ever thought this man would intentionally do someone harm. "Hey I'm off today, why don't you and me go for a run or something? You've gotta be going nuts cooped up here and you look like the kind of guy who usually stays pretty active."

Fuuma readily agreed, happy for the chance to stretch his legs. If he was at least right about what month it was, soccer season would be starting soon. Maybe he could rejoin the team once he got everything sorted out.

The police near the park did a double take when they saw Fuuma and Kusanagi stretching on one of the pathways but moved along once they saw that this time the two were laughing and joking good-naturedly. Kusanagi was right; it did feel good to run again, especially on a day like this with the sun beaming down and the breeze picking up everyone once in a while to cool them off.

Fuuma breathed deeply, feeling like maybe things weren't really as bad as they seemed. A small bird caught his eye as it flitted across the pathway and he paused to watch it return to its nest where several young cheeped happily.

_Kotori would be delighted. _ He thought with a smile that quickly faded.

_Kotori…_ How could he have forgotten? He still didn't know where she was, what had happened…

_Powerlines were snapping. The ground was crumbling…_

And then the world lurched. Fuuma stumbled, trying to keep his balance but fell backward, slamming into the concrete with a painful thud. He opened his eyes to orient himself, not thinking about the fact that the sun was directly above him. He was blinded and gasped for air as the light engulfed him.

_No!_ He thought one last time before a triumphant smile flashed before him and Fuuma felt himself disappear once more.

.

.

Kusanagi waited until the warning tremors of the impending earthquake had abated before cautiously making his way back to the fallen teen, who was sitting up with a significantly different expression from that which he had worn for the past couple of days.

"Are you okay?" He asked warily.

"I'm great." The teenager replied. "But you should get indoors."

"What about you?"

"I've just remembered that there's somewhere I need to be right now." He answered smoothly.

He made his way past panicky parents and shaken children to the office building whose basement had served as a kind of headquarters for the past few months, pausing only once by a fountain surrounded by plants that caught his eye.

Near one corner was an aralia with leaves full and green, practically beaming at him with life. He held one hand out to it and stroked one extend leaf as though shaking its hand cordially.

Then he smiled and walked away without a glance back.

The leaf dropped to the floor as the rest of the plant shriveled in on itself, brown with rotting foliage.


End file.
